Hunton & Williams, the Richmond-based legal giant, will absorb the core of the defunct Jenkens & Gilchrist law firm, the Dallas-based group that closed its doors last week after settling claims that it provided legal advice justifying phony tax shelters.
Those activities were conducted out of the firm’s Chicago offices, and Wally Martinez, Hunton’s managing partner, told the Dallas Morning News, that none of the lawyers it is hiring had anything do with the fraud.
Jenkens agreed to pay a $76 million fine to resolve all civil and criminal claims against the firm.
The firm had 605 lawyers when the scandal broke in 2001, but was down to 208 attorneys in February 2007.
The new attorneys will increase Hunton’s contingent in Dallas from 70 to 157 and make it one of the largest non-Texas-based firms in that state. Five of the lawyers will be in Austin and one in Houston.
Hunton has had a substantial presence in Dallas since 2002, when it absorbed the firm of Worsham, Forsythe & Wooldridge LLP.
Hunton now has almost 1,000 lawyers in 19 offices.
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